Yesterday I found a small, unlabeled Acer palmatum at a nursery. It was in excellent condition and a very good price, so I bought it anyway. Can anyone help me identify it? Its current height is 34" and the largest of the leaves are about 1" across. The bark is green and the new growth is a yellow-green. Thanks very much. Samara
Which nursery did you find it at? Does the trunk/branching have a similar look to Mikawa yatsubusa, ie, does it have a stocky appearance with close internodes? It *almost* looks like maybe Lima Gold. The leaves on mine are fairly small and have a similar shape to the ones on your tree, and new leaves have a more golden tone.
It has a trunk shape and leaf pattern similar to Saiho but the leaves are larger than Saiho. I think AlainK's venture at a "Hime" is pretty good.
Thanks, Andrea. I bought it at Rarefind Nursery. It's definitely not a Mikawa yatsubusa. I have two of them and the leaves on this one are considerably smaller and they don't overlap. The leaves are medium to dark green right now, except for the new growth, and the leaves in the pictures I've seen of Lima Gold are a bit different. AlainK & bub72ck, it could very well be one of the Hime series. It looks a bit like A. p. 'Oto hime, but has more of an upright growth pattern.
This is a coincidence. Yesterday I bought a maple that was untagged in an end of summer half price sale at a nursery. It looks a lot like your tree, but the leaves are are more like 2 ½ than an inch. I am not familiar with the "Hime" trees, but I notice that some with similar leaves to mine are "Fall's Fire", Ibo Nishiki, Nishiki Gawa, and Tatsuta Gawa. I have been going thru the Vertrees book to try to spot it. Maybe it will be easier to tell with fall colors. Wondering whether it was sent from grower w/o tags and no one has ever known. The shape is nice but other than that it is pretty plain.
ID a lost tag AP is still a headache for me and it is time consuming. I normally observe the leaves changed from Spring to Summer then Falls in order to get as closed as to identify what group of cultivar it is. Then next step search thru the internet at some of the reliable AP websites i.e. our forum and other Oregon nurseries... where they have a good description of the trees. For ex: 'hime' family will show more characters in the Spring than in the summer because in the summer most of the hime will display only green and without all the red tip/ring around the leaf parameter that are normally shown in spring time. I have seen some of the green Acer palmatum with small leaves too or the 'Tiny leaf' cultivar but they are not in the hime family. Some of mine taken more than a year for me to id and I am still not sure if I got it correct. So if you can get the name tag with the tree it will be much better and hopefully it is a correct tag :)). Best of luck to id yours.
Thanks Atapi. I was wondering whether I should have purchased this tree when I realized belatedly that I had no idea what conditions to plant it in! But it looked like a tree that was so vigorous that I really liked it even tho it is quite plain. I guess it is tempting to think that someone will say they recognize it. I have also wondered whether it is some grafting under stock that was grown by mistake, but it does have a graft union. It will be interesting to see what It does that might make it identifiable!
